Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Yesterday, Wrath of Heroes re-introduced Durring the Engineer to the game. I, of course, had to own him to quickly bought up some gems and made the purchase. Thankfully, Mythic just upped the amount of gems you get for the same amount of money too. I can't resist me some Engineer gameplay.

Durrig is sort of like Felicia, AoE focused. There are some differences though. Durrig deals Physical damage and has turret. You can check out his full list of abilities here. In the end though, he is a ranged DPS class and I do tend to favor them.

What I liked.

Dwarf. He's a Dwarf who carries a gun.

Turret. You have 2 turret options with the Mastery tree, Bombardment and Steam. Unlike WAR, these are instant cast and can be cast on the move, which is sweet. The Steam turret is good for when you are up close and personal, the bombardment tutrret is good for when you want to hang back.

Stopping Power. This tactic adds a snare to your Gun Blast. Very nice to keep people from running away, or to just be annoying.

AoE. He can do quite a bit of area of affect damage, and his steam turret can also apply an AoE snare.

What I didn't like.

Low Damage. Just like WAR, the Engineer has trouble with burst damage. The abundance of tanks currently being played does not help this problem, it is demoralizing to see your AoE hitting for 7 damage. There are times when you can get some good damage due to the passive. Tracer Rounds (98 damage), at close range gets doubled.

Stopping Power. I like it sometimes, but I ended up unslotting it. There are just too many ways for melee classes to run faster that the snare felt negligible.

Squishy. The Engineer is a bit squishy, especially when running in to drop off a Steam Turret.

Tactics

There are some tactics that can help Durrig out.

Carnage. We can cause a lot of damage, even if its small.... so Durrig works well with procs. Once these start hitting, your damage goes way up.

Eternal Knowledge. 20% lower cooldowns is great for everyone.

Bloodthirst. This is another proc based tactic, but instead heals you. It is only an 8% chance, so it felt like it rarely occurred.

Absorb Vitality. This perk is usuable at 8,000 damage, which Durrig can get without too much of a problem. It'll do more AoE damage and heal you. I actually don;t have access to thhis one yet.

Adaptation. This tactic provides some crit immunity. Always good if you want to survive a bit longer. I have this on Ilanya, may need to move it over to Durrig.

Overall

I found him fun to play, and plan on making him my main (as if there was any doubt). In almost all of my matches I was able to top the damage charts, as much as that matters. I will likely buy his second skin so I can get access to another loadout. Switching between Steam and Bombardment turrets depending on the map will be important.